


Rita [Redacted]: Problem Solver

by sashawiremarryme



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2018-12-07
Packaged: 2019-09-13 11:06:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16891404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sashawiremarryme/pseuds/sashawiremarryme
Summary: Juno's out for the day, so Rita can just sit back, relax, and eat some snacks. Unfortunately, the universe has decided that she should meet certified human disaster Mick Mercury. Like always, he's in a bit of trouble.





	Rita [Redacted]: Problem Solver

**Author's Note:**

> Written for inevitablyuncertain on Tumblr

“Rita, I’m leaving!” Juno Steel yelled as he ran through Rita’s office. He was in such a rush, that by the time Rita looked up from her screen, the door was nearly closed.

“Okay, bye!” She raised her hand and waved to the now empty room, before grabbing another handful of pretzels and turning back to her screen.

She was interrupted by banging on the office door. She jumped at the sound, spilling snacks all over herself. She started picking the fallen pretzels off of her sweater, already forgetting that somebody was at the door. The door slammed open and she flinched again, spilling more food on herself.

“Jay! Jay! Where are—” The man who had just entered the office stopped when he saw her. He coughed. “Oh, uh, sorry, I guess I had the wrong door.” He shifted, uncomfortably.

“Don’t worry about it, people bang down that door all the time. I keep telling the boss that he should replace it or at least put a lock in it. That thing could get blown open up a strong wind, I tell ya.” She finally managed to get all of the pretzels off of her. She looked up at the man and smiled. “So who were you looking for?”

“Uh, Jay, I mean Juno Steel. But I guess this isn’t his office.” He started to step back towards the door.

“Nah, this is Mista Steel’s office, he’s just not here right now.” She sat back down and threw a pretzel into her mouth.

“Oh,” he calmed down slightly, “do you know where he is?”

“Nope.”

“Do you when he’ll be back?” His breathing started to speed up.

“Nope”

“Oh,” he was practically hyperventilating now, “thanks for your help anyway.” He continued moving towards the door.

“Are you okay, Mista? You don’t look too good.”

He buried his face in his hands, “I messed up… wait, what’s your name?”

“Rita,” she walked to the other side of her desk and found a chair for him.

“Well, like I said, I messed up, Rita.”

“What happened?” She resisted the urge to grab the popcorn she had under her desk and eat it as he explained himself.

“Okay, so, I was working on this prototype, do you promise not to tell anyone was it was for?”

“I swear, I won’t tell anyone.”

“Good, I just need to make sure no-one steals my ideas.” Rita nodded in agreement. “It was a prototype jetpack for rabbits.” He paused, waiting for her to respond. “Pretty good right?’ He prompted.

“A jetpack?” He nodded enthusiastically. “For rabbits?” He kept nodding. “So you wanted to make the human-eating sewer monsters fly?”

“Firstly, they don’t eat humans, they just attack them sometimes,” he defended himself, “and yeah, I wanna let them fly. I figured the reason they were so angry all the time is because they’re stuck in the sewer where it’s wet, and cold, and dark. I mean, I’d be angry too if I had to live in a tiny sewer my whole life. So I thought, hey, I bet those rabbits would be a lot happier if they could fly out of the sewers into the sky where there’s way more space.”

“Oh my gosh!” Rita yelled. “You’re right, those poor rabbits! They must be so cramped!”

“That’s exactly what I thought, so I made this prototype and it was all ready to test and then I realised I didn’t have a rabbit to test it on. But that was okay, I had my dog, Jonathan, so I could test it on him. Only problem was, Jonathan is way smaller than a rabbit, but that’s nothing some string and some good knots can’t fix, right? And I am a member of the Oldtown Outdoor Explorers, or I used to be one when I was a kid, they kicked me out after two days. And now that I think about it we never actually explored anything, the guy who ran it just took me and all the other kids to a bar and made us buy him alcohol, so I guess it wasn’t really outdoors either…” he trailed off.

“Umm… you were saying?”

“Oh yeah, so Jonathan wouldn’t fit so I had to tie him in and then he took off. The thing is, I didn’t really add in a way to control it, so he just kinda flew all around the room and crashed into a bunch of stuff and eventually one of the knots came loose and he fell out of the jetpack but then without his weight it just moved even faster and kept crashing into stuff. Eventually, it broke, but not before it destroyed most of the stuff in my dad’s living room and he’s gonna kill me when he gets home and finds out. So I need Jay to use his detective skills to track down a store I can go to to replace everything.” He pointed to a bag by the door that Rita hadn’t noticed. “I brought everything that broke so we can work out what it was and replace it.”

Rita burst out laughing. “What’s so funny?” The man looked embarrassed.

“You don’t need to replace everything, not when you’ve got me.” She held out her arms, knocking a pile of papers off her desk. “Rita! Handywoman extraordinaire!”

“Really? You can help me?”

“I sure can, I break stuff all the time so I’ve gotten really good at fixing stuff.” She pointed to the chair he was sitting in. “You see that chair there? I’ve broken that chair three times.” She raised three fingers. “Once by hitting it against the floor as hard as I could to kill a spider, once by kicking it when I was learning to breakdance, and once by standing on in while changing a lightbulb.” On cue, the chair collapsed beneath his weight. She raised a fourth finger. “And once by letting you sit in it. Oh well, we’ll just add that to the list of things to fix today. I’ll get the glitter glue!” She started rummaging through her desk drawers. “What was your name again?” She called out.

“Mick, Mick Mercury.” She froze, she knew that name. She got up and looked at him.

“Oh, Mista Mercury, the boss talks about you all the time.”

“Really, what does he say?” Rita could practically Mista Steel him now, yelling about his friend’s most recent mistake.

“He thinks you’ve got a lot of ideas and are really creative.” She quickly ran out of things she knew about him that someone could compliment him on. “Well, you know Mista Steel.”

“Oh, thanks Rita,” he then frowned, “hey, that doesn’t sound like Juno at all!” Rita was already running out of the room, yelling something there being no tape and she had to go and buy some, hoping he would forget about what she’d said by the time she came back.

**Author's Note:**

> For the record, if someone were to draw Mick chasing after a dog strapped to a jetpack as it destroys everything I would actually love them forever.


End file.
